gifts

This week at Bud Clark the table was nearly full. We had 7 around the table, the most to date. If laughter were people, the table was crowded. During the first long write, though, there were tears. One woman excused herself, took her journal, and left the room quietly. I followed her into the hall, and asked if she were OK, if I could do anything. She held her journal close, the other hand opening her apartment door down the hall, her sobs coming harder. She shook her head.

But she came back. When she came back, she came over to my side of the table and held her hand out with a little something in it. I extended my hand, and she put a book the size of my palm in my hand: Native American Wisdom. And in it was an inscription to me. Here was someone who has so little giving me something. I stopped the tears of gratitude before they rose up.

And it was the same woman who had a great line about the postcards. We write postcards to each writer after each session with very specific comments about their work that week. The postcards are really fun to write. And this week they mentioned them for the first time. The same woman said, "I wondered when I saw it, 'who the hell was writing me a postcard?' and then I realized, 'so cool!'" She was on a roll.

It was a wonderful, raucous, real session.